According to a recent press release, “IBM and Hortonworks today announced an expansion to their relationship focused on extending data science and machine learning to more developers and across the Apache Hadoop ecosystem. The companies are combining Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP®) with IBM Data Science Experience and IBM Big SQL into new integrated solutions designed to help everyone from data scientists to business leaders better analyze and manage their mounting data volumes and accelerate data-driven decision-making. ‘The combination of IBM’s data science and Hortonworks’ open and connected data platforms will benefit not only our respective clients, but also the Apache open source community because of our combined investment and collaboration,’ said Rob Bearden, CEO, Hortonworks. ‘We’re excited about the inevitable acceleration in technical innovations that this relationship is being designed to foster, the result being smarter and more agile businesses’.”

The release goes on, “The news builds on the long-standing relationship between the companies and includes the following: Hortonworks will resell the IBM Data Science Experience with HDP, a leading Hadoop distribution, and adopt it as its strategic data science platform, giving developers a fast on-ramp to data science capabilities including machine learning, advanced analytics and statistics. Also, Hortonworks and IBM will create new solution bundles that integrate HDP with IBM Big SQL, IBM’s SQL engine for Hadoop, giving Hortonworks’ legions of clients and users a familiar method of managing their data. IBM is adopting HDP for its Hadoop distribution and will fully integrate it with Data Science Experience and Machine Learning. As a result, this solution will combine for users the rich data security, governance and operations functionality provided by HDP, and the advanced analytics and management of the Data Science Experience. IBM will migrate existing IBM BigInsights users to HDP.”